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      "Most people," once remarked that astute detective Littlechild — the hunter down of some of the cleverest criminals of modern times — "most people have some habit, idiosyncrasy, craze, or hobby, and, luckily for the detective criminals do not differ in that respect from ordinary mortals.

      "A man's habits often afford a greater clue to his identification than his appearance."

      Detectives all the world over will agree with him says a writer in the "Penny Magazine." It is remarkable how habits remain with a man even when the most elementary distates of prudence should teach him how dangerous a persistence in them must be.

      French detectives were a short time since much exercised respecting the extradition of a man who having been sentenced to lifelong punishment in a French penal colony, managed to make his escape in a boat that he manufactured out of some wood that came his way. In that frail craft he put to sea to take his chance of escape or of a horrible death by drowning or starvation. Fortune favored him, and he was picked up by a vessel, to the captain of which he told an ingenious story to account for his presence in that lonely boat drifting about in mid-ocean at the mercy of the winds and waves.

      He was taken on board in a half-dead condition and was kindly treated, and in the end he arrived in England. The French police had given him up as dead — as a victim of the ocean he had tempted — and, settling down in business, the escaped prisoner lived for a long time undisturbed. The news of his escape had, of course, reached the ears of the Scotland Yard detectives, and among them was one who remembered him well.

      That officer had, many years past, had him through his hands. He had arrested him one day and the arrest had been effected as the wanted man bad been standing in a newsvendor's shop where he used to go to purchase his papers.

      Some months ago the officer again chanced to visit that same shop, not on business, but to buy an evening paper.

      He was astounded to see there, also buying a newspaper, the very man he had arrested those long years ago — the escaped prisoner from that terrible island — the man supposed to have found death in that boat on the ocean! He pounced upon him.

      That habit of purchasing his papers at that shop got the unfortunate customer into trouble a second time.

      Littlechild relates how he once was called upon to track down a peculiarly artful swindler to whose identity he had only the faintest clues. One of them, however, was the fact that the wanted gentleman was in the habit of taking regularly a high-class weekly paper devoted to hunting, sporting, and the pursuit of the country gentleman. The criminal had also, he discovered, lived once on a time in a certain well-to-do suburb in London. The detective came to the conclusion that it would be worth while to make enquiries in that part respecting the persons who had ordered that paper of the newsagents there. It was a lengthy business, but his trouble was well repaid. At one shop he found a customer who had recently arrived in the district, and whose first anxiety had been to have that paper supplied to him regularly. His description exactly tallied with that of the person Littlechild was seeking. He was the man!

      "I can't tell you much about the chap — leastways, not to distinguish him from other young fellows," answered an individual interviewed respecting a certain man wanted for murder, and whom it was believed he had chanced to meet. His description of the person whom he had met was of the haziest character, though he had spent the evening in his company at a public­house "I can tell you, though, that he sings a good song," he added.

      "What did he sing?" asked the detective eagerly.

      "Well, 'The pilgrim of love,'" answered the man.

      That song identified the songster as the murderer. It had been his favorite song — the one in which he prided himself he shone to the greatest advantage, the one in which his voice was most admired. He could not help singing it whenever he had the opportunity.

Caught at a Fancy Dress Ball

      A sensational capture was once effected at a fancy dress ball in London by one of the smartest young detectives at Scotland Yard. The officer bad been entrusted with the task of running down a man wanted for a peculiarly atrocious murder in the United States. The murderer had, the police across the water had good reason to believe, found refuge in London, where he had many friends who would assist him to baulk his pursuers. For weeks he was hunted in every quarter where it was thought probable he would be found, but there was not the slightest trace of him. He was an old criminal — one who had had experience in all the tricks of throwing unwelcome searchers off his track. With the terror of death upon him if he were captured he became doubly astute, and doubly generous to those who assisted him to baffle the trackers.

      He seemed to have sunk into the ground, and the detective was beginning to think that he would never have the pleasure of laying his hands on him, when he learnt that the hunted man had a passion for dancing — a ball where he could display his accomplishments in that way, had an almost irresistible attraction for him The detective could also dance well — detective are frequently men of more accomplishments than the general public give them credit for possessing — and he himself resolved to go to that ball.

      Now, a fancy-dress ball is not the easiest of places at which to recognise a wanted person. He also would probably be in a fancy dress which would disguise him to an almost unrecognisable extent. It would be necessary to get very close to a suspected party to be certain of him, and to do that the detective himself must act the part of a gay reveller.

      The officer went to a famous costumier, and with his assistance made his appearance at the ball in a shape very far different from the ordinary appearance of a Scotland Yard officer.

The Mysterious Monk.

      He enjoyed the evening immensely, though dancing was not what he had come there for. But it almost seemed as though the night would result in nothing else, when the detective's eyes suddenly fell on a dancer of quite peculiar gifts. He was habited in the robes of a monk Something in the bearing and in the form of that monk arrested his attention. He got into conversation with him, and so friendly did they become in the course of the evening that the monk and the other dancer at last sought a quiet place for refreshment together. The monk found suddenly that he lacked something of the acumen to discover a foe in disguise. He discovered himself pounced on and helpless in the hands of his captor before he knew where he was. Dancing had betrayed him!

      Many detectives who have made a speciality of a branch of crime can recognise the hand of the particular criminal in that branch. There are men who, surveying the safe that the burglar has operated on, can declare pretty certainly that the work of breaking it open has been performed by such and such an artist. With counterfeit money the mark of the experienced old hand is often obvious to the expert detective. In hundreds of these cases it is not so much the actual method of operation as some little peculiarity in which the operator indulges — some individuality that he stamps upon his work — that leads to the recognition.

      M. Mace, the great French detective, was once called on to exert his very keen wits over a mysterious banquet. At that supper-table there had been a gay party of scoundrels who had refreshed themselves there before proceeding to perpetrate a burglary, in the committing of which one of the party had been guilty of the murder of at unfortunate servant who had surprised them and who had paid for his fidelity to his master with his life.

      Four men had supped at that table — the four men Mace wanted in connection with that ghastly midnight crime! The table was, fortunately, just as they had left it — not a crumb had been moved. Who was the man who left his knife and fork with the fork to the right of the knife? Who was the man who folded up his serviette in such a peculiar manner? Who was the man who was such a lover of brandy that he even soaked his fruit in it? There was the brandy on his plate with pieces of strawberry saturated in it!

      M. Mace became from that moment that he gazed on the remains of that banquet, strangely interested in the table peculiarities of all the criminals whom his experience told him would be likely to have had a hand in the crime. He round the man who ate strawberries soaked in brandy, and the culprit spoilt the business of tracking down the other guests by confessing and giving the whole party away. I say, "he spoilt the game," for Mace had already got upon the track of each of the other feasters, and a beautiful piece of detective work was in progress.

The Polite Man.

      It was the peculiarity of a swindler named Gothard to take off his hat to any hunchback that he chanced to meet. How he came to do so was a mystery. Probably he thought it brought him good luck. Criminals are among the most superstitious of mortals.

      Gothard was one of the cleverest of his class at disguise, and an officer, having found a person whom he suspected of being Gothard, could not for the life of him make certain whether his suspicions were correct till he remembered that little characteristic of the man he wanted. He promptly went off, and, in default of a handy genuine humped-backed man, got a colleague and put an artificial hump on his back — a hump that would have caught the attention of the most short-sighted of mortals. When the suspected man sallied forth the next day there was the hump just in front of him! He paid it homage with a bow of the greatest respect. But that hump did not bring him luck. The next moment he found the handcuffs snapped on his wrists.

      One of the cleverer of hotel swindlers was, in the course of last summer, "brought up" ignominiously just in the height of his season by a little trick he had of caring for his umbrella. He was a man who did well at his nefarious practices; indeed, he frequently found victims to the amount of several hundreds of pounds during the seaside season. Probably the peculiar care he took of his umbrella was a piece of economy he had learnt in less flourishing days, when the gorgeous appearance he found it necessary to maintain was a severe drain on his resources.

Things Criminals Forget.

      However he had contracted the habit, when he came in after being out in a shower of rain, of standing his umbrella carefully in a corner, with the handle downwards so that the rain could drip off with greater freedom. I believe that that is the method in which persons learned in the care of umbrellas declare an umbrella should be treated when it is wet. Few mortals, however, are to be found who cherish their umbrellas in such a fashion, and when the detective's eye one day caught one so standing in the hotel he became curious as to it owner. He did not need an umbrella for months afterwards.

      "Habits, indeed, are the trickiest of betrayers," declared the famous Detective Field.

      One of the most celebrated officers at Scotland Yard made a queer appeal to the strength of habit to solve the identity of a man he suspected as a criminal he was seeking.

      The man was standing at a street corner, and the detective after carefully surveying him for some time, could not make out for certain whether he was the man he sought or not. If he were the real Simon Pure he had served for some years in an American prison, where the convicts were accustomed to be called to attention by a peculiar whistle uttered by the warders. The detective knew that whistle. He walked close up to the unsuspecting gentleman and suddenly gave the best imitation of it he could produce. The effect was magical. The man stood at attention at once! The next instant he stood at greater attention still.

(THE END)